Football - Curle undone by home form

Notts County's home form cost Keith Curle his job as manager, according to Magpies chief executive Jim Rodwell.

Curle was sacked by the npower League One club on Sunday following a 2-1 defeat at bottom-of-the-table Hartlepool the previous day.

It was only Curle's second away loss in almost a year in charge after leading the Magpies to a club-record 22-game unbeaten run on their travels.

However, the club's problems this season have been at Meadow Lane where they have lost six league matches.

Curle's side went out of the Capital One Cup and FA Cup at home to lower league opposition in the shape of Bradford, who have incredibly gone on to reach this month's final at Wembley, and Rotherham respectively.

The Magpies were also knocked out of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy in front of their own fans by Sheffield United.

Rodwell told Press Association Sport: "I feel that recent performances have been quite stale, but our home form all season has been fairly awful quite frankly.

"We've done very well away from home and we've got an excellent record which everyone can rightly be proud of, but I'd liked to have turned that around and had that record at home.

"The reason being because the simple fact is we derive a lot of our income from people that come and pay to watch us here at Meadow Lane.

"We've lost nine games at home and been dumped out of all three cup competitions with barely a whimper. I think it's obvious to everybody that it hasn't been good."